Sitting in a beach-side restaurant in Palolem’s long and wide beach in the evening, I watched the blazing sun go mild and turn orange as he went behind a boulder strewn crag that stretched into the sea. As the sea breeze kissed us in the leisurely evening, people of various origins—some from nearby towns, some on a weekend getaway and some coming from half-way across the world on a long lazy holiday—strolled along the beach in a completely unhurried pace that reflected the Goan way of living easy. Those swimming in the ocean and skimming along the waves made their way slowly towards the beach as the sun drifted down the horizon.
Sipping my colourful and fruity drink that is so characteristic of beach-side life of leisure, I saw the clouds working with the sun to paint the sky in various hues and shapes of beauty, announcing the beginning of another careless and happy evening for the holidaying visitors. As the colours in the sky faded and the stars began twinkling in the sky, the blooming face on moon intensified the urge of the waves to reach for the shores. The otherwise silence of the evening was periodically enhanced by the gurgling waves, foaming and glistening in the darkness. As the romance of the evening took over the charm of a sunbath, the tables from my restaurant that were confined under a roof now expanded into the sandy shores, lit by candle light and the rays of moon.
Every thoughts of Goa remind of the pleasant evenings I spent there. Each place in Goa had its own distinct characteristics that offered a unique experience, but every evening was marked by the sound of the waves and a feeling of contentment. Once listening to the waves in the deserted vagator beach after dark, we were amused by an army of small harmless crabs scurrying in such large numbers that we had to evacuate from there. But the loss of being the sandy beach was adequately compensated by a great movie playing on a big television screen in an open-air sports bar nearby. Not to forget again was the colourful fruity drink, this time followed up with a large serving of delicious Goan cuisine.
A completely different experience away from the beaches on a pleasant winter evening is still etched in my memory. In the backwaters of Mandovi River among the small islands with sparsely inhabited villages, marshes and thick population of mangroves, I sauntered in Diwar island in search of a Goa away from the sea. The tall structures of the churches from Old Goa dominated the horizon somewhere far away. Gentle aberrations of the nearby green hills were bifurcated by the blue stretch of Mandovi. As the last light of the day fell on the tip of the trees, small groups of dazzling white egrets appeared as countless dots in small clusters near the horizon. They grew larger and larger as the flew into us, some in small groups of a few dozens and some in large groups of hundreds. They kept coming in more and more numbers as the evening progressed. As darkness fell and their numbers dwindled, I had seen a few tens of thousands emerging from the eastern sky and flying into their roost in the islands of Mandovi. Nowhere else had I seen a spectacle of these pure white birds in such large numbers filling up the evening sky.
Best of my sea-side memories come from Gokarna, a small town just south of Goan borders. It is here that I have seen some of the most beautiful beaches that are a mix of rocky and sandy shores. After drifting far from the shore and swimming for hours in the calm seas, I came back and sat on a rock to witness sunset on a rocky shore. As the sun turned into an orange ball and glittered in the wavy sea waters, small boats made their way home after a long day at sea. Dolphins danced against the sun in the deep sea and celebrated the evening with joy. As the waves kissed the earth and bounced on the rocks around me, they sprinkled a few drops on me and gave me a feeling of a complete joy that I found nowhere else before.
